The Mark of Blankenship
by coonskin
Summary: This story takes the premise from the Buck Rogers episode Mark of the Saurian and moves it over to this show. Steve is certain that something is odd about the new scientist in the lab, but Oscar and Rudy don't believe him.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I've always loved the Buck Rogers episode Mark of the Saurian because that one gets into some of the slight differences that would occur in that situation, like different immunities and different biochemistry over the centuries. It occurred to me that a similar, though not identical, situation could happen with Steve, where he was aware of something due to his eye but nobody else believed him if he was sick at the time. So this story is that basic premise transferred over to this show. Hope you enjoy.

(SMDM)

Oscar sat in his office doing paperwork but as always with an ear cocked toward the phone. He was never far from communication, but tonight, he even had both ears cocked toward the phone.

Tonight, a top scientist from one of the United States' trusted allies was going to be arriving. He would be working over here for a while with the US team on this high-budget shared project. He thought he was very close to breaking through the nuclear fusion problem. Nuclear fission, splitting atoms, which formed the technology behind most current nuclear inventions in use, had the downside of giving off radiation. Nuclear fusion, putting atoms together, had no radiation byproduct if cold fusion was used. It had, however, proven very stubborn to achieve effectively in practice. If they could ever harness fusion reliably and simply, it was limitless, safe energy with none of the dangers that accompanied fission.

Dr. Mark Blankenship should be landing soon. In fact, he should have been here this afternoon. However, his plane had been delayed in takeoff due to weather over the Atlantic and hadn't finally made it up until several hours late. Thus, Oscar was here after closing time. His secretary had already gone home, but he was waiting here himself for the call.

A perfunctory knock sounded at the door, and Steve opened it a second later without waiting for a response.

"Hi, Steve." Oscar smiled at him, surprised. "I wasn't expecting you back from your assignment until tomorrow."

"Things moved a little faster than we expected," Steve replied. He walked across the office and tossed a manila envelope lightly onto Oscar's desk. "There you go. I stole your information as requested."

"_They _stole it," Oscar reminded him. "We just got it back. We're the rightful owners, so we didn't steal it. Great work, pal." He opened the envelope and pulled out the pages. Steve sat down with a soft sigh in the chair in front of Oscar's desk.

Oscar looked up from his reunion with this data. "Are you all right?" he asked. Steve didn't quite seem himself tonight, and he looked weary. His stride across the office a minute ago had been a little slow, too.

"Just tired," Steve said. "It's been a very busy few days."

"Did things get interesting?" Oscar asked.

"Let's just say that they didn't hand it over to me on a silver platter," Steve confirmed.

The phone rang at that moment, and Oscar gave his friend an apologetic smile as he picked it up. "Oscar Goldman." This was the hoped-for update on Blankenship's plane with the latest ETA. He should be here in about two hours. The conversation took a few minutes, including making sure that secure transportation from the airport was standing by. Blankenship would be given a choice of simply going to his apartment they'd arranged or coming straight on to OSI to meet Oscar, but Oscar expected him to choose OSI, even if only briefly to get acquainted. He'd rarely met a genius scientist who wasn't a fanatic on his particular subject of interest. Most of them would rather do anything work related than eat or sleep.

When he hung up, he turned back to Steve to resume asking about his latest assignment, and he realized that his friend had fallen asleep in the chair. He really must be tired. Oscar resumed his study of the paperwork, just leaving Steve alone. He no doubt hadn't had much sleep the last few nights on his mission.

His mission. Oscar sometimes wished that they could give Steve more backup on missions so that the full burden wouldn't fall solely on him when things started going wrong, but the trouble was, Steve had no partner who could keep up with him. By necessity, he had to work solo on most assignments.

Nuclear fusion. Oscar let his mind wander forward to Blankenship again. If they made the breakthrough on fusion, Rudy could give Steve new and improved power packs, ones which required no shielding to protect him from the radiation. The strength provided would even be superior to what he had now. A total upgrade. Oscar imagined Rudy's enthusiasm working on it. Using nuclear power for the bionics had always bothered the doctor a little, precisely because of the radiation danger. Still, no other power source was strong enough to drive the very complex machinery while still being small enough to fit in the limbs.

Oscar turned a page on his paperwork and looked back up at Steve. His friend really did look exhausted. Oscar thought a little guiltily of the push of demanding missions lately. It wouldn't hurt to give Steve a few days off. They had to remember that while the technology could be kept tuned up by Rudy, the human side still could get worn out by the demands they made on him. Steve's uniqueness made him the sole possibility as an agent for many missions, but Oscar knew that he asked a lot of him, and there was a temptation to make it too much. Once Steve woke up, he decided, he'd tell him to take the next week and go fishing or horseback riding or something to recharge his non-mechanical batteries.

Steve shifted, his head turning against the back of the chair, and Oscar suddenly frowned, studying him more closely. His friend was sweating now, drops visible on his forehead even though the temperature in the office was comfortable. Oscar stood up and softly walked around the desk, trying not to wake the other man up but getting closer to him. Steve was definitely sweating, and his breathing seemed a little quick, too. Oscar reached out and touched him lightly on the forehead, then jumped. Steve was burning up.

The phone was only a short reach away, and Oscar consulted his card file and then dialed the number for the hotel while walking back around the desk, retreating a bit. He didn't really want to wake Steve up; his friend probably needed the rest. When the front desk answered, he gave them a room number.

"Hello." Rudy sounded sleepy, reminding Oscar exactly what time it was.

Oscar spoke softly. "Rudy, it's Oscar. Steve came in from a mission a little while ago and just fell asleep in my office while I was talking on the phone, and now he's running a fever."

Rudy woke up all at once, his voice much more alert now. "How high a fever?"

"I haven't got a thermometer here, but it feels high to me. And he's sweating and seems to be breathing a little faster than usual."

"Count it. The breathing."

Oscar looked at his watch, then studied Steve, watching the rise and fall of his chest as a minute of silence passed. "19."

"Hmm. That's on the high side but not crazy. Do you think you can take his pulse?"

"Hang on a minute." Oscar put the phone down and circled the desk again, picking up Steve's left arm. Steve shifted against the back of the chair again, muttering something unintelligible, but he didn't wake up. Oscar fumbled for a few seconds hunting the right spot, then found it and counted off a minute on his watch. He returned to the back of his desk and picked the phone up. "87."

Rudy sighed. "Again, that's a little elevated, especially for him. His cardiac system tends to run low if anything: less demands on it. But it's not dangerously high. He's still asleep?"

"Yes. A little restless - he shifted right then when I grabbed his arm. I haven't really tried to wake him up."

"Don't for the moment. Did he mention feeling ill when he came in?"

"How long have you known him?" Oscar retorted. "He looked a bit off from the time he got here, not quite himself. But he never said a word about it until I asked him if he was okay, and then he just said he was tired. Long mission; that was all."

"He's certainly got an advanced case of stubbornness," Rudy grumbled. "He's probably just come down with some virus he picked up somewhere, but I'd better have a look at him. I'll be there in a few hours. I'm down in Norfolk at that conference, you know."

"Yes. I can get somebody from the lab up here to check him out, but I wanted your opinion first."

"No, I'll come back." Rudy sounded worried himself, in spite of his phone diagnosis of just a virus. "I spoke yesterday, so there's no reason I can't check out early and come back to Washington. I know one of my assistants could see him, but I'd like to do it myself. From what you've said, his vital signs aren't calling this an emergency, but I'll still get there soon as I can. Meanwhile, just let him sleep. If he has picked up some bug, that's probably the best thing for him."

"I'll do that. Thanks, Rudy."

Oscar hung up and sat there watching Steve now instead of paperwork. Steve progressively seemed to get more restless as time went on, though he remained asleep. Oscar paced back around the desk to touch him again. The fever was rising. Just a virus, he reminded himself. Rudy thinks it's just a virus.

But Rudy was also coming straight back from his conference in the middle of the night. Nothing medically with Steve was entirely simple anymore, not even a bug, and Oscar knew that as well as Rudy did.

He had completely forgotten about Dr. Blankenship until the phone rang, announcing that they were downstairs. Steve moved a bit at the sound, but he never quite woke up. More reluctantly than he would have imagined a few hours ago, Oscar left his office, closed the door behind him softly, and prepared to meet the brilliant scientist.

(SMDM)

Steve woke up slowly, thickly, as if climbing through mud out of a tunnel. Finally, his eyes focused.

He was in Oscar's office, and he remembered now coming here with the information and sitting down in this chair. He must have fallen asleep. Oscar was nowhere to be seen, apparently had gone on home for the night and just left Steve here sleeping, not wanting to wake him.

Steve rubbed a hand across his forehead. He could feel the fever now, burning like a fire through him. He hadn't felt well for the last day, tired and achy, but he hadn't had a fever then, and he had hoped he was just worn out. There had indeed been a lot of tough missions lately. Now, he was forced to face the inescapable fact: He was sick.

He sighed. Better just go on home and go to bed. He probably had some virus, and he could sleep it off. No point in worrying Oscar, Rudy, and the others, not yet. He knew he could contact the bionics program in the lab. If he made one complaint, a whole fleet of personnel would be called in pronto, even in the middle of the night, but there wasn't any point. Nothing was wrong with his bionics, no need to call the team out for a repair over in the lab. His bionics were immune to routine bugs. He only wished the rest of him were.

He stood, taking a moment to get his balance set. He felt weak as a kitten now, much worse than when he had arrived, and his legs didn't seem quite right underneath him. Rudy had explained the phenomenon once when Steve had been injured, a human injury that time, not a bionic one. When his physical body was under extreme duress, either through injury or illness, the bionics could also be off. The problem wasn't in the mechanical limbs themselves but in the very complicated interface where bionics joined flesh and countless little connections were made. When his physical body wasn't up to par, the signals along all those pathways to his limbs didn't work as efficiently. The same thing applied in reverse with very severe bionic injuries. While he couldn't feel pain per se in his artificial limbs, when the bionics suffered critical damage, the signals they sent back to his physical body went haywire, and it could sometimes knock him down physically, too. The two systems were very intricately tied together, and when one was badly off line, the other often went wrong in sympathy to it.

Knowing the reason didn't make it any less frustrating. Steve sighed and walked slowly over to the door of the office.

He heard voices as he opened the door, and he paused to take stock of the situation. Oscar was here after all. He was across the reception area and at the door into the hall, which he was holding open. His back was to Steve. Hovering in the background were two security people; Steve had seen them before. They usually had escort duty, transporting bigwigs around safely from one point to another. It was the man facing Oscar, just finishing a conversation and about to leave, who seized his attention.

He was glowing.

Steve stared at him. There was a slight yellow glow, almost as if the man's form had been outlined. Steve had never seen him before; he was obviously some VIP. Oscar's attitude alone would have told Steve that even without the escort.

Steve blinked and tried to focus, then ran a hand over his eyes. Closing one and then the other, he realized that the effect was coming from his bionic eye. With the human eye alone, the man looked normal. But even bionically, only he had the aura, not Oscar, not the security men. Nothing else looked wrong. Steve tried to magnify, to look at him more closely. Again the bionics were a little slow to respond, but he did get magnification at last. It didn't tell him anything new. There was just that yellow haze surrounding this man.

He was glowing.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve was rooted to the spot, studying the illuminated stranger. "Thank you very much," Oscar was saying. "We're delighted to have you here, Doctor, and I look forward to you starting work tomorrow."

"I'm looking forward to it as well." The man Oscar was talking to apparently felt Steve's fixed stare and looked over at him curiously just before he turned and left. Oscar turned around, following his gaze, and saw Steve leaning against the door frame.

"Hey, pal." Oscar stepped away from the door as it closed and crossed the reception area. "How are you feeling?"

Steve kept watching the man with his escort. He was _still_ glowing, even from behind, as he disappeared down the hall. "Oscar," Steve asked, "who was that?"

"That's Dr. Mark Blankenship. He's from an ally, and he's going to be working with us for a few weeks in the lab." Oscar studied Steve. "How are you feeling?" he repeated.

Steve was feeling lousy and more so by the moment, but his eyes were still fixed on the door, even though the departing group was out of sight by now. "Something's wrong with him, Oscar," he said.

"Wrong? What do you mean?" Oscar looked toward the now-blank hallway himself. "He's a brilliant scientist. Wish there were more like him in the world."

Steve shook his head. "Something's wrong. He was glowing."

Oscar's attention sharpened up, totally back on Steve now, forgetting the hallway. "Glowing? What do you mean, Steve?"

"Glowing. All over, like somebody outlined him in yellow. He looked like a walking neon sign." Oscar's eyes narrowed, and Steve read the expression flawlessly. "He _was_ glowing, Oscar. I know you couldn't see it, but I could. There's something strange about him."

Oscar put a hand on Steve's arm. "Steve, you're running a fever, and it's getting higher all the time. I think you're just sick. That's why he looked different."

Steve was getting a little annoyed now. "Oscar, the man was glowing." He could feel his body sagging a little bit beneath him and was glad of the sturdy doorframe that he had a shoulder hitched on at the moment.

Oscar tugged gently at his arm. "Why don't we sit down and then talk about it?"

He was humoring him; Steve could tell. "I'm not seeing things, Oscar. There is something different about that man."

"Well, he's gone for now, so there's no reason to stand here talking about him when we could sit down in the office and be more comfortable." Oscar pulled him back into his office. Steve felt too awful to put up much of a fight, but he wavered slightly as he lost the support of the door frame, and Oscar put an arm clear around him, steadying him. "Come on, pal. Let's sit down."

Oscar steered him to the couch, and Steve more or less collapsed into the cushions. "Just take it easy," Oscar urged him. He pushed Steve down so he was no longer in a sitting position.

"I know what I saw," Steve insisted. He didn't have the energy to resist as Oscar picked his legs up, swinging them onto the couch, too.

"I have no doubt that you saw it," Oscar said. Again, Steve could hear the soothing tone in his voice and knew that his boss didn't believe him.

"It was there, Oscar. Only with the bionic eye; that's why you weren't seeing it, too. But it was there."

Oscar knelt by the couch, getting closer to his friend's level. "Steve, you're obviously sick. I think even you know that by now." Steve reluctantly nodded after a moment. "You know that when your body is injured or sick and isn't quite working right, it can happen that the bionics lose some function, too. You've got a high fever, and your eye simply wasn't focusing correctly. Doesn't that make sense? Rudy has talked to you about how closely tied together the two parts are now."

Steve for the first time wondered himself. "It looked real," he countered, but he was losing a little of the former vehemence.

"I'm sure you saw it," Oscar assured him again. "I just think it had a lot more to do with your physical condition than with Dr. Blankenship." He put a hand on Steve's forehead. "You're burning up. It's no wonder you're not quite seeing things right."

Steve considered. "Nothing else looked wrong, though. Wouldn't it affect everything I saw if the eye was off?" He felt like he was sinking down into the couch, his body wanting to give in to the illness for the moment, and he abruptly fought it, trying to push up to a sitting position.

"Whoa, pal. Settle down." Oscar pushed him back down, his strength greater just now. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Home," Steve replied. "I've obviously picked up some little bug, like you said. I need to just go to bed, sleep it off. I'm sure I'll feel better in the morning."

"You aren't going anywhere until Rudy has checked you over," Oscar stated flatly, his tone leaving no room for negotiation.

"No need to bother Rudy. This is nothing to do with the bionics, just a virus."

"I've already bothered Rudy, and he's on his way back here from his conference as fast as he can come."

Steve sighed. "You didn't need to do that, Oscar. You're overreacting."

Oscar shook his head. "If I am, it's only because you're worth it."

A spark of anger flared up for a minute before it was swallowed by the fever sweeping through him. "Six million dollars' worth. I know. You wouldn't want anything to happen to your precious investment, after all. You might even have to go to the trouble to build another one to replace me." The sharp edge in his tone startled Steve as much as it did Oscar. The other man flinched but didn't respond, and there was a short silence before Steve broke it. "I'm sorry, Oscar."

Oscar patted him on the shoulder. "Forget it, pal. But as for Rudy, he's already on the way, like I said. The only thing you'd gain by going to your apartment is to give him another stop to make after he gets here. Easiest thing for everyone is just to stay put and get it over with, because he _is_ going to check you out."

Steve could feel his eyes closing. He felt so weak at the moment. Oscar gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Just rest, pal. Rudy will be here before too long, and hopefully he'll be able to help you start feeling a little better."

The fever was like a heated whirlpool, pulling him down. "I did see him glowing," Steve insisted, his last words before he lost the fight to keep his eyes open.

(SMD)

Oscar was on his feet pacing. He stopped regularly in his circuit to look at Steve; there was no way anyone could have missed the fact that he was ill now, even on a quick glance. He looked far worse than he had when he'd walked in hours ago to deliver his information. Finally, the door to the office opened, and Oscar spun around at the sound and hurried over. "Thank God you're here."

Rudy looked at the couch, where Steve was asleep. "Is he getting worse?"

"Yes. The fever is higher now, but he also woke up for a little while, and he was either outright hallucinating or his eye wasn't functioning correctly because he's sick."

"It would be understandable to have the eye not focus correctly when he's got a high fever. The eye is the most complicated implant he has."

"I know, but he was so dogged about it. Kept insisting what he saw was real, but what he was describing was ridiculous. If he hadn't been totally serious, I would have thought he was setting up some joke on me."

"What was he describing?" Rudy asked.

"When he woke up and came out of this room for a moment, he happened to see a man leaving - you remember Dr. Mark Blankenship was due to arrive?" Rudy nodded. "He landed and came by to get introduced before going on to his lodging. Steve insisted that the man looked like a neon sign."

"A neon sign?" Rudy asked, making sure he'd heard that right.

Oscar nodded. "All lit up. A walking neon sign is his own description of it, and he didn't want to consider any alternative explanation at all. He even got annoyed with me when I was trying to talk to him."

Rudy frowned. "Well, let's see what kind of scrape he's gotten into this time." He walked over to the couch and put a hand on Steve's forehead. The frown deepened. "That's quite a fever to just be a random virus."

"I thought so, too, but I'm not a doctor." Oscar had hoped that Rudy, like Steve, would have accused him of overreacting.

"Has he been coughing at all?"

"Not that I've heard, and I've been with him several hours now. All I've noticed is the fever and him being weak; he was having a little trouble walking earlier when he woke up. And, of course, calling people neon signs."

Rudy had picked up a small bag at the lab on his way by, and now he opened it, searching through the contents. "When he was awake for a bit, how did he say he was feeling? I'm assuming you asked."

"Yes, but he didn't give me much of an answer. He did agree that he was sick, but even that much was like pulling teeth. He also tried to leave. He said it must be a bug, and he could just go home and sleep it off, and he'd be fine in the morning. Didn't think it was a big deal or that he needed to be seen at all. That was right after he'd been insisting that Blankenship was glowing."

Rudy shook his head in exasperation. He straightened back up from his bag with a thermometer and stethoscope in one hand and a complicated electronic instrument in the other. "Well, let's get some more information from him. Try to, at least." To this point, the two men had been talking very softly, but now Rudy put a hand on Steve's shoulder and shook it as he called him. "Steve! Come on, fella, wake up."

It took several seconds, but Steve finally opened his eyes and looked up at them. Oscar flinched. Normally, it was impossible to distinguish the artificial eye from the real one. Rudy had even managed to achieve a reactive pupil in his creation. At the moment, though, the two looked quite different. Steve's right eye was glazed, fever bright, while the left one still looked normal. Still, there was clear recognition in his expression and nothing like his fixed attention on Blankenship earlier. Apparently, Oscar thought, neither he nor Rudy resembled a neon sign, at least for now.

"Hey there," Rudy said. "I won't ask how you're feeling in general. Let's just get down to specific questions; those are harder to dodge. How long have you been feeling like you were getting sick?"

Steve hesitated, looked from one to the other face hovering over him, then sighed. "A day or two."

"You didn't have a fever like this all that time, though, did you?" Oscar asked. He didn't think he possibly could have missed that when Steve first came in.

Steve shook his head and cleared his throat. "No. Just tired and achy. It wasn't this bad earlier."

"Well, let's get some data. Just a minute, Oscar." Oscar had gone over to the bar to pour a glass of cold water for Steve. "Let me get his temperature first." Rudy inserted the thermometer, then put on the stethoscope while he was waiting. "Deep breath, Steve." He moved the metal disc around. "Well, your lungs sound all right, and you don't seem to be coughing."

"No," Steve said around the thermometer.

"Rules out pneumonia, at least." Rudy moved the scope over to listen to his heart. "Your heart is a little fast but strong and steady. But you've got a fever of -" He removed the thermometer. "103.4. That's pretty high for a simple virus."

Oscar was standing there with the water, and Steve slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position and reached for it. "Steve," Rudy said, "this is important, so level with me. Have you been injured anywhere, even slightly, in the last few days? Anything that broke the skin?"

"No," Steve replied. "Nothing aside from the usual getting banged up a little." Oscar and Rudy shared a look at the way Steve automatically called that usual, but they had no doubt that the description of his typical mission was accurate.

"But no cuts or scrapes?" Rudy persisted. "Nothing that could have gotten infected?"

"No."

"You said everything was aching. Is any one spot in particular hurting more than the rest?"

Steve hesitated, then said, "Not from the virus."

"I'm the one who's the doctor, Steve," Rudy reminded him.

"Well, I got smacked in the ribs on the right side yesterday. Didn't break them; I know what that feels like. But they are a little sore."

"Yesterday. But you were already starting to feel like you might be getting sick at that point anyway?"

"Yeah, right about then. A little bit before that fight, actually."

"I'll check that out, but probably it has nothing to do with the illness," Rudy said. "Which still leaves us back at something that's got quite a punch to be just a virus. That's not saying it's not one, but I don't want to miss anything here." The doctor considered for a few moments. "Of course, if you were totally worn out to begin with, you'd be more susceptible, and any virus would hit you harder. How long since you had a couple of days off?"

"I don't remember," Steve answered. He took another drink.

Rudy looked back at Oscar. Oscar was running agendas in his mind, trying to recall. "You don't remember either, do you?" Rudy asked.

"It's probably been a while," Oscar admitted. "Just a minute." He went over to his desk, unlocked the top drawer, and pulled out a notebook. Flipping through it, his own eyebrows raised. "Five months," he said.

Rudy shook his head. "And that whole time, he's been just going from one mission to another, back to back, no break at all? With the kind of things you ask him to do?"

"I didn't realize it had been that long," Oscar replied, feeling guilty under the doctor's gaze.

"Why not? You have it written down." Rudy turned his professional disapproval back to Steve. "Did _you_ realize it had been that long?"

Steve sighed. "Not precisely. I couldn't tell you exact months."

"But were you feeling worn out already before this last case, or even before the last few cases?"

Steve hesitated, then nodded. "But they were important. Something was always urgent, and Oscar needed things done now."

Rudy switched to his electronic scanner, grumbling things under his breath that Oscar didn't really want to hear aloud. He hooked the instrument to Steve's right arm and turned it on. "The readouts from your bionics are definitely off," he noted. "That's no doubt because of the interface not working as well as usual. I'm sure that's why your eye was acting up earlier."

Steve, who had been calm and fairly cooperative to that point, though obviously sick, flared up at once. "So he told you I was hallucinating? Rudy, I wasn't seeing things; it was _there_. There is something odd about that man. Something's not right."

"Take it easy," Rudy said. He dropped the subject. "I want to get some blood work, and I'd like to keep a close eye on you. This probably is just a virus and will have to run its course, but we need to be careful."

"Me being sick isn't what happened with Blankenship," Steve insisted. "The man was glowing, all over. Really weird effect. I've never seen anything quite like that before." He looked from one of them to the other. "And both of you think I'm just losing it."

"No, we don't, Steve," Rudy said. "I'm sure you saw it."

Steve sighed again. "Can I just go home now?" He hauled himself to his feet.

Rudy grabbed an elbow. "No, I want to keep you in one of the observation rooms at the lab. We can monitor you better that way. I don't think you really require full hospital admission, and security is more of an issue there anyway, but I don't want you left alone."

Steve started to protest, but even standing up was clearly an effort for him. Oscar grasped his other elbow. "Look at it this way, pal. At least you'll get a few days off."

Rudy glared at Oscar across Steve. "He's going to get more than that. I've told you before, you can't just make constant extreme demands on him like he's a machine." The group started slow progress toward the door with Rudy grumbling all the way, Oscar meekly silent, and Steve simply focusing on walking.


	3. Chapter 3

In a small, extremely secure room, Dr. Neborra frowned at the screen as he watched the hall of OSI after the group had left Oscar Goldman's office. His robot was functioning perfectly, flawless design if he did say so himself. But that man - the other man, the one who had come out of the inner office at the last moment. Who was he? He had been staring at the robot with a peculiar fixation.

Neborra turned to Dr. Mark Blankenship, the real Blankenship, that is, who was tied firmly into a chair. "Who was that? The one in the background at the end?"

"I have no idea. I never saw him before," Blankenship replied. "You'll never get away with this, you know."

"Oh, but I will. Just a few days of access to the OSI lab, with my robot recording everything and transmitting it and tapes kept back here, and I'll have enough classified information to sell that I'll be rich beyond my dreams. Then, of course, you will simply defect. Everything will be blamed on you by both sides."

"That thing can't keep the pretense up among scientists," Blankenship insisted.

"Why not, at least for a while? I downloaded your memories into him while you were so helpfully under pentothal. He's just as good as you were."

Blankenship shook his head. "Factual knowledge isn't the same as the feel for how to put it together and use it."

"He is perfect," Neborra insisted. "And I only need to keep up the pretense for a few days while I gather information. In fact, I probably should have already killed you, but just in case something goes electronically wrong, I didn't quite want to eliminate my source for those memories yet. But that man. Something was odd there. He was the only one looking at the robot like he was unusual." Making up his mind, Neborra entered a stream of data on the keyboard in front of him.

On screen, they saw the robot turn toward the escort as they drove through Washington toward the apartment. "Who was that man in Goldman's office?" the robot asked. "The one leaning against the doorframe."

"Oh, that's Colonel Austin. Steve Austin," the security man driving said. "He's a favorite of Goldman's, and he's around quite a bit. You'll probably bump into him again if you spend enough time here. He was an astronaut."

Neborra, who had been trying mentally to place that name, snapped his fingers. He typed another line on the keyboard.

"Oh, that's it," the robot replied. "I thought he looked familiar."

The car swept on through the city in the night, and back in his room, Neborra chewed his lower lip in thought.

(SMD)

"How's Steve?" Oscar asked. "Is he doing any better this morning?"

Rudy looked up from his lab printouts. "No, actually he's a bit worse. His fever is up to 103.6 now, and he feels awful. Headache, sore throat, aching all over. I had to really fish to get all that when I saw him a few minutes ago, understand, but under pressure, he admitted it. But -" Rudy tapped the paperwork - "I've got at least part of the reason for all this now."

"So it's not just a virus? It's something you can fix?"

"Partially." Rudy sighed. "Unfortunately, it _is_ a virus, and there's not much treatment you can do for them other than symptomatic. But his blood work turned up a lot of other little things wrong. It's not an infection; white count is normal. His electrolytes and chemistries are somewhat out of whack, though. Looking at these tests, it's obvious that he is completely exhausted and run down, and I'm sure that's why the virus hit him so hard. We can at least fix some of that. So I just started an IV, and we'll get some of this straightened out with fluids and supplements. Won't get rid of the virus, but it might help a little in how he feels."

Oscar shook his head. "I really wasn't aware of how much I'd been asking him to do lately, Rudy. I'll make a note to watch that more from now on."

Rudy had had enough time since last night to expand his targets of annoyance. "It wasn't all your fault, Oscar. I could kick myself. His last checkup was three weeks ago, and there was that relay circuit in his leg that was going wrong and took us a bit to track it down. Remember?" Oscar nodded. "Well, looking back at my notes, I got so involved chasing that down that I didn't run any blood work at all in that exam. I was totally focused on the bionic side because of that problem. I might have been able to cut this off at the pass if I'd just been paying more attention. And besides that, there is the fact that _Steve_ definitely knew that he was worn out and hitting the limit, and he never said anything."

"Plenty of blame to go around," Oscar agreed, but he still made a private vow to keep a better eye on things, speaking for himself. "Thank God this really got a hold of him in my office and not while he was out on a mission."

"He was back a little early, wasn't he?" Rudy asked.

"Yes, he was," Oscar confirmed. "Do you think that was intentional? Subconsciously, anyway?"

"Might well be. He knew for the last day or two that he was getting sick, even if he didn't want to admit it. I imagine he picked up the pace then on finishing his work. Then once he got back to a location he felt safe, the wheels all fell off at that point."

"He's going to be all right, though, isn't he?" Oscar asked.

"Given time. I can't find anything else wrong with him besides exhaustion. The virus will just have to run its course. Oh, and he does have bruised ribs on the right side, like he said, but they aren't fractured. All he needs at the moment is mainly rest. According to the aide I left here last night to keep an eye on him, he did sleep most of the rest of the night, but he was restless even when he was asleep."

"Well, if he's awake now, I'll go see him for a minute." Oscar started to turn away.

Rudy put down his paperwork and followed him. "Oh, one more thing, Oscar." Oscar stopped, looking back inquiringly. Rudy sighed and took his glasses off, putting them in his lab coat pocket. "There's one subject that you need to totally avoid."

"Blankenship." Oscar filled in the blank quickly. "He's still on that kick?"

"He brought it up himself when I was trying to get symptoms out of him. Just as fired up as he was last night. He refuses to accept that what he saw was caused by the illness."

"I won't mention him," Oscar promised, "and thankfully, he's going to be working in another part of the lab, so no reason Steve should bump into him again."

The two men crossed headed through another hallway and into a larger room with several instruments and equipment stations and with a few smaller rooms off of it with windows opening onto the larger area. Steve was in one of these observation rooms with the blinds half closed, enough to give some privacy while still letting someone from the outer area look in to check on him if they got close enough and at the right angle to the window. The head of the bed was propped up, and someone had brought him some breakfast on a tray, but he wasn't eating much of it. He looked up as Oscar and Rudy entered.

"Hey, pal. How are you feeling?" Oscar asked.

"Still like I've got a bug." Steve raised his left arm, which now had the IV inserted in it, and spoke to Rudy. "You said this would make me feel better."

"In several hours, not in 30 minutes," Rudy corrected. "It should be fixing some things by tonight. We can't correct the virus, though; I'm afraid you're just going to have to fight that out yourself."

Steve shook his head. "You can give me new legs and an arm and an eye, make me see in the dark and run 60 miles an hour, and you can't knock out a simple bug?"

"I'm afraid not." Rudy grinned. "Doctors and scientists all over the world have been asking that question for a while, how we haven't cured simple things already given all of our technology. We're still trying, but we aren't there yet."

"Meanwhile," Oscar said, "you just get some rest, and that will help. And you can decide where you want to go on vacation after you get well. You'll get a nice break from work, whatever you want to do."

"Speaking of work," Steve said, "you need to watch Dr. Blankenship." Oscar and Rudy sighed in unison. "Oscar, there is something wrong with that man. It's not just me being sick. Be careful what you give him access to."

"Steve," Oscar said, "he could probably give _us_ some lessons. The man is a brilliant scientist, and his credentials and history are perfect. His country is a long-standing ally, and we've done work exchanges dozens of times with their people. He's a friend."

Steve shook his head. "There's something strange about him. I've never seen anything like that before, and it was just him. Nothing else."

Oscar looked at his watch. "I've got to get off into the day's work. You just take it easy and get well, pal. Everything's going to be better soon." He turned and left, and Rudy came across to rest a hand against Steve's forehead, checking the fever.

"Not going down yet. Sleep is the best thing for you, Steve, but eat some more of that first if you can."

"I'm not hallucinating," Steve insisted.

Rudy put a hand on his arm. "I don't think you are. The interface just isn't working totally right at the moment, which is completely understandable. I'll leave you alone to rest now. The IV should start to make some difference by tonight." He left the room.

Steve lay in bed for several minutes, ignoring breakfast, his mind spinning. Neither of his friends believed him; that was clear. But he was _certain_ something was wrong with Blankenship. He'd never seen anything like that before, sick or well, not with anyone. Not even with anyone else last night after the fever hit. Not even today with the fever a little higher. If the eye was malfunctioning, why would it pick only one person to malfunction on?

Blankenship would be arriving to start work. He was here in the same building, in the same lab. Steve considered, then moved the tray aside and reached over to unhook the IV tubing. He was going to go find the man and have a second look for himself, just to verify. With an effort, he hauled himself out of bed, then walked carefully to the window. He peeked out through the blinds. A few people were around, but everyone was busy, focused on their work. Nobody was facing this room at the moment. Seizing his opportunity, he opened the door and edged out.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thanks for the review! Yes, I'm picking up the idea of robots from those SMDM episodes, though a different mad scientist here than in those eps. You really have to suspend disbelief with robot substitution, but you do with plenty of things on TV shows already.

About the Buck Rogers episode, there it was aliens, not robots. The Searcher was picking up an ambassador and his party to transport them, only some enemy aliens had killed the ambassador et al and were taking their place, using an image screen device they had developed to assume other appearances. They were going to infiltrate key points in the galaxy as they impersonated other people. Only their device was calibrated for current galaxy residents, not for Buck, whose biochemistry was just slightly different from 25th century humans. So their image screen wasn't working entirely correctly with him, and he was getting weird visual effects. He tried to warn everybody that something was wrong with the ambassador and his party, but meanwhile, he had picked up an infection that humans except him were now immune to, so nobody was listening to him. They all thought it was just that he was sick and had a high fever, and they weren't taking his warnings seriously. All except the aliens, of course; they took Buck very seriously and were trying to stop him before he blew their cover.

This story isn't going to precisely parallel that plot, but that episode did give me this idea.

(SMDM)

Rudy was in his office reviewing the lab work and berating himself yet again when Carla's voice brought him to swift attention as his head nurse tapped on the open office door. "Dr. Wells, I just went to check on Steve after reading last night's notes when I got in, and he's not in his room."

"Is he in the bathroom?" Rudy was already moving as he spoke, though. It wasn't far. Back out of his office, down a short length of hall, into the larger equipment room, and then across to the observation room where Steve should have been. There was a bathroom just one door down from there, but the door was standing open, the light off. Carla followed Rudy into Steve's room, and the doctor picked up the detached IV line, which had been left neatly hung on the pole, and sighed.

Carla, who knew Steve very well from several rounds of him being a patient by now, shook her head fondly. "If you really want him to rest and take it easy, you might consider tying him down. It would take pretty strong ropes, though."

Rudy didn't return her smile; he was too busy fighting the sinking feeling of suspicion. He was afraid he knew exactly where Steve had gone. "We need to find him ASAP. He really is quite sick, and he has no business being up running around. You search everything north of here in the lab complex, and I'll take south." South included the area where Dr. Blankenship should have already arrived at work.

Carla left, and Rudy lengthened stride, making a beeline through the halls, not searching as he went but heading directly for a specific destination.

(SMDM)

Steve was a lot weaker than he had realized. The lab complex with all of OSI's assorted experiments and studies going on, far more than just the studies in bionics, was sizeable, but today, it felt like miles. He frequently kept a hand on the wall as he walked, and by the third person who asked him if he was okay, he was beginning to wonder himself. He felt awful. Still, he was bound and determined to repeat last night's chance observation just to see if it was consistent and reproducible.

Unfortunately, when he got to the appropriate area, Blankenship wasn't there. He asked one of the staff that he knew if the man was in yet.

"Oh, yeah, he got here a little while ago. He was interested in looking around before he started work, though. Oscar took him off on a tour of the place, the non classified parts of it, at least. Are you all right, Steve?"

Steve was sagging at the thought of chasing Blankenship and Oscar clear around the whole lab, but he straightened up stubbornly. "I'm fine. Think I picked up a bug somewhere, but it will pass." He turned away, his mind trying to sort this out through the fever.

A tour. Blankenship wanted a tour. Of course, Oscar wouldn't show him anything too classified, but what this _would_ do was tell the other man exactly where those forbidden classified sections were. Steve's suspicions were growing. All scientists were curious, but still, he could see possibilities for spying here.

One foot in front of the other. He kept moving with an effort, and finally, he found them. Oscar was in the weather section, talking to Blankenship and introducing him to a few of the scientists there. Steve propped himself up on the doorframe and watched.

There was no question. The outlined neon yellow was precisely the same as last night, and nobody else, not in the whole lab this morning, had appeared like that to him. This wasn't a fever-induced bionic mistake. This was something sinister, though he wasn't sure exactly what.

Oscar apparently felt his stare, because he looked over and jumped. Blankenship followed his reaction. Having been caught, Steve peeled himself off the doorway and started across the room, trying to keep upright and also reminding himself that phrases like "my bionic eye" weren't safe in this company. Nobody in the room right now except Oscar knew of his enhanced status.

"Oscar," he said, "can I talk to you in your office?"

Oscar looked both annoyed and concerned. "Steve," he replied, dodging the question, "_what_ are you doing here?"

"I was looking for you," Steve said. "I have something important to tell you."

Oscar turned to one of the weather scientists and said, "would you please page Rudy Wells?"

Steve's annoyance rose. "Oscar, it's you I need to see. Not Rudy."

Blankenship entered the conversation, smoothly polite. "And who is this, Mr. Goldman?"

"This is Colonel Austin. I'm afraid he's sick today, though, and he should have just stayed put in bed and not come looking for me."

Steve was still staring at Blankenship. "Me being sick has nothing to do with it. I need to talk to you, Oscar." He could feel his body starting to waver, and Oscar caught his arm, supporting him.

"Later, Steve. It will wait."

All at once, Rudy was there, coming up on the other side and taking hold of the bionic arm. "Steve, I've been looking all over for you. What do you think you're doing?"

Oscar answered before Steve could. "He's going back to his room, and this time, Rudy, I want you to _keep_ him there. Sedate him."

Steve protested at once, ignoring the fact that both of them were holding him up and that he probably would have collapsed by this point otherwise. His body was quitting on him, physical and bionic in conspiracy. "I don't need -"

Rudy tightened his grip. "Steve, I am the doctor, and right now, what you need is rest. Everything else can wait." He looked around the couple of people in the room. "Michael, can you help me? I think it's going to take two of us to walk him back there." Oscar yielded as the other man came over, moving over beside Blankenship again. Steve knew that he would be apologizing for this whole episode the minute they were gone. It annoyed him. Couldn't any of them listen to him, even for a moment? Didn't he deserve that much from them after everything? Didn't they trust him at all?

He gave a final try. "Oscar, I need to talk to you."

"Later, Steve. We'll talk about anything you want to later."

Rudy and Michael between them turned him away. Steve resisted, but he had no strength for it. Still protesting, he was steered back toward the door of the weather room.

(SMDM)

Dr. Neborra had watched this whole episode on the screen with every bit as much riveted attention as Austin had showed his robot. As soon as Austin was gone, Goldman turned to the robot. "I apologize for that," he said. "Austin is a good man, but like I said, he's sick today."

"No problem," the robot replied, speaking the words Neborra typed into the computer. "The man clearly wasn't in control of himself. I hope he'll be feeling better soon."

As Goldman and the robot continued their tour, Neborra sat back, his thoughts racing. This tour was invaluable by everything it wasn't showing, not by what it was, and he had been marking all the sections passed over for later attention. But Austin was becoming a real threat. Thank goodness the man was obviously truly sick today, but still, this was endangering Neborra's plan.

"He wanted the one called Rudy Wells to take him back to his room and keep him there. They're keeping Austin in the lab somewhere. Now why would they do that? Since he's sick, the obvious thing to do is either to send him home or maybe to the doctor or a clinic. Why hold him at a scientific lab?" He mused on that for a minute. "Maybe they've tried some experimental treatment or drug on him in one of their tests, and they aren't sure how that might cross react with his inconvenient illness, and they don't want to give an unedited medical history to anyone at a hospital."

Neborra finally gave up that problem for a larger one. Austin being kept in the lab only increased the chances of encountering him again, and sooner or later, Goldman, who regarded him as "a favorite" per the security escort, might actually start listening to him. Whatever Austin was picking up on, it had to be stopped and him silenced before he could reveal it.

No, the solution was clear. Whatever the reason Steve Austin was being held in the lab while he was sick, his illness needed to take a sharp turn for the worse. Neborra couldn't risk having his robot challenged repeatedly. No, he was going to have to kill Austin. Neborra started analyzing poisons mentally, deciding which was innocent enough in symptoms that it could be put down to just an extreme worsening of a virus.


	5. Chapter 5

Oscar walked into Rudy's office that evening. The first shift lab staff, which comprised the great majority of employees here, had just left for home, and the building was quiet. Rudy, at his desk, looked up from some paperwork.

"What a day," Oscar said. He dropped into the chair in front of the desk. "How's Steve?" Oscar had looked in on him four times today himself, but he still wanted the professional evaluation.

"The blood work is starting to improve," Rudy said. "His fever still hasn't broken, but I'm hoping that some more rest will do the trick with this virus and he'll start getting better by tomorrow. He's been asleep most of the day, and he ought to get some actual rest tonight."

Oscar smiled. "He's been asleep every time I looked in on him today after this morning, which I'm sure wasn't by choice. Good."

"No, hardly by choice. I've got him right where I want him at the moment on the sedatives. You can wake him up if you really try, but it takes a good bit of effort. He's definitely not going to be taking the initiative to go tracking Blankenship throughout the building again." Rudy shook his head. "Although I still don't know how he managed it even unsedated this morning. He really didn't have the strength for that. He could hardly walk coming back."

"Sure you didn't install some bionic stubbornness in one of your operations?" Oscar asked.

"I've wondered at times. What he really needs now is rest, and he's finally getting it. I've woken him up a couple of times through the day; he's still totally locked on Blankenship, but he isn't able to do much about it. Tried to get him to eat a little bit at lunch, but he hasn't got any appetite. He's mad at both of us, by the way."

"I figured that," Oscar replied. "He'll get over it. In fact, I'll bet he'll be laughing about all this with us in another week." That was a bet that he was to remember - and regret - making with himself well before another week.

"I know," Rudy said. "But it was tough having to listen to him say how he thought he ought to have earned our trust by now. I tried to explain again that trust wasn't the issue here, but we had to have that exact same conversation whenever he was awake. Blankenship wasn't upset by him this morning, was he?"

"No, he was totally understanding, thank goodness. Steve was so obviously sick; anybody could tell that now, even if they didn't know him. I was just afraid he was going to start talking about his bionic eye before you could arrive and get him out of there. He was staring at Blankenship like he was green or something. Or I guess like he was a neon sign."

"How's the work going with Blankenship?"

"Today was mostly just settling in, getting to know the facility, meeting people he'll be working with. He hasn't really started digging into things yet, but I'm sure he will tomorrow. He also decided that he'd rather rent a car for himself than be driven around everywhere, and he went out at lunch to do that. Said he'd enjoy some sightseeing around Washington this weekend."

"Well, I'm glad he's enjoying himself." Rudy stood up. "I've been looking in on Steve every hour, even though he's stable now and isn't going anywhere. And there will be someone around all night, too, although everybody has orders to try to leave him alone and not disturb him."

"I stuck my nose in just a few minutes ago on the way to your office. He was sound asleep." Oscar stood up himself. "I need to talk to Reynolds about something in his section. You want to go out to dinner after that?"

Rudy shook his head. "Think I'll hang around here for a while tonight. Lots of paperwork to catch up on."

Oscar gave an understanding nod. "I'll bet. I might work on my own for a few more hours after I see Reynolds."

They parted at the door to the office, Oscar going right down the hall and Rudy left. The larger room was mostly deserted now, although he startled Carla coming out. "I thought you'd already left," Rudy said.

She looked back toward Steve's room. "I - I will in a few minutes. Just forgot something."

"Anderson is staying for this evening for the first stretch, then a replacement at 2:00. Steve won't be here alone. Somebody will keep checking on him regularly, but he should just be sleeping all night."

"I know." She smiled at Rudy. "I think I left something in my desk. I'll be gone myself in a few more minutes." She went on out the door, and Rudy walked across the larger room. He peered through the half-turned blinds at the window at first, then opened the door to the observation room and stood there just inside watching Steve, counting breaths. He didn't go clear up to him, not this time, though he'd run another set of vitals before he really left for the night. Steve still looked flushed and ill, even through sleep. Rudy ran mentally through every test he had run so far, but he really had ruled out all other causes. This was just a virus, and with rest, backed up by some IV supplementation, Steve would get better. Hopefully tomorrow would see the turnaround.

Finally, he turned around to go back to his paperwork himself. Lost in thought, he missed seeing Dr. Blankenship, who was standing at the door to the larger room watching him and who ducked quickly back out of sight as Rudy turned. By the time Rudy reached the hall, it was quiet and empty.

(SMDM)

Dr. Neborra studied the screen in satisfaction. This morning, Neborra had given the robot instructions to follow Goldman at a distance after the tour was over. He had hoped that Goldman, once free, would head straight over to check on Austin, and sure enough, the man had taken off with a purposeful stride, definitely heading directly for some specific destination, and after a few minutes' walk, he had turned into the door of an area that hadn't been anywhere on their tour. Neborra had marked the door for future reference. Hopefully Austin was in there, now so conveniently sedated by Goldman's own orders. Still, they wouldn't keep him sedated any longer than he was feverish and presumably delirious, and Neborra couldn't risk him actually improving. He had looked sick enough that Neborra thought they were safe for the rest of this day, but he had no intentions of letting things drag out past tonight.

So the robot at lunch had gone out to rent a car and then had gone shopping for Neborra's own chemical list. All was prepared now, and as soon as people went home and the traffic in the lab this evening lightened up, the robot would go back to that door and search that area for wherever they were keeping Austin.

It worked out even more perfectly than Neborra could have asked, because the robot almost immediately in searching that section had run into Rudy Wells. Wells was standing in the door of a little room off a bigger one, absolutely lost in thought, and he didn't spot the robot move back as he turned around. Once Wells had left the large room and headed on down the hall, the robot turned into that door. He crossed the big room, opened the door to the secondary one, and there was Austin. Neborra let out a soft hiss of anticipation. Yes, there was his helpless prey. Austin was deeply, artificially asleep. He'd never know what hit him. One shot, and he would worsen steadily over the next few hours and be dead by morning. The robot, following the transmitted commands from his maker, stepped forward, reaching into his jacket pocket for the prepared syringe.

(SMDM)

The pain woke him, reaching through the clouds of drug- and fever-induced fog in his mind, pulling him back to the surface. Steve shifted, trying to escape the painful pressure on his right side, and the pressure followed. With an effort, he finally pried his eyes open.

He hadn't thought it was possible to feel worse than he had earlier, but he did. The whole world also now had a vague shimmery effect; here was the general fever-induced eye misfocusing that everybody had been trying to blame his earlier observations on. Nothing looked quite right.

That had nothing to do with the very specific, individual effect, though. Blankenship was standing at Steve's right side, and he was outlined in bright pulsing neon, just as before. He was bending over Steve's right arm, applying his weight in some effort, throwing his body into it, and as he did, his elbow was pushing directly into Steve's bruised ribs. It was this that had woken Steve up. Steve blinked in disbelief, wondering what on earth Blankenship was doing here, trying to get his mind to work faster. He could feel the effects of whatever Rudy had given him, weighing him down, slowing thought processes that he badly needed at the moment.

With a last push, Blankenship finally managed to do whatever he was trying with Steve's right arm, and then he straightened back up, and Steve saw the needle as Blankenship removed it from his arm.

A needle. Blankenship had given him a shot in his right arm.

This wasn't an eye malfunction. This was an outright attack. More than ever, Steve was sure that the other man was plotting something against OSI, and now he was trying to eliminate Steve, the only one who was drawing attention to him.

Blankenship put the empty syringe into his jacket pocket, turned, and headed for the door of the little room. With a tremendous effort, anger and adrenaline combined to overcome the sedative for the moment, and Steve launched himself clear off the bed and landed on the other man's back just as he opened the door.

Blankenship was caught completely by surprise and went down, but he was already trying to roll as he landed, turning to grapple with his assailant. They more or less fell through the door as the struggle progressed, Steve desperately trying to regain the advantage he had lost. Blankenship was incredibly strong, and he was putting up a good fight. Calling on every ounce he had and getting some response even through the illness from the bionics, Steve managed to regain the upper position. Blankenship bucked like a bronco as Steve fought to pin him down, to hold him there, right arm pushing against him with everything Steve could summon at the moment as his left arm reached for that pocket. The syringe. He had to get the syringe, had to get proof.

Voices were becoming audible as if at a distance, down a long tunnel. Steve recognized Oscar's voice and Rudy's, but he didn't turn to them, not just yet. They didn't believe him; that was already established. More talking wouldn't accomplish anything. He had to get proof, and Blankenship had it in his pocket in the form of that syringe. His friends wouldn't listen to him without proof. There were other hands on him now, but Blankenship was still struggling beneath him, and Steve tuned everything else out. Only Blankenship and the hidden syringe were his focus right now.

Suddenly, there was a sharp prick at the side of his neck, an attack from another needle. Steve finally let up a bit on his efforts against Blankenship to turn toward the new assailant, but the world was already shifting out of focus, gray clouds blowing in across his vision. He made one last, convulsive, failing grab for Blankenship's jacket pocket, and then he lost consciousness.


	6. Chapter 6

The frantic activity of the last few minutes was finally starting to settle. Rudy double checked the IV that they had just restarted, having to use a different location on the arm since Steve obviously had ripped the existing one out violently as he launched himself off the bed to go tackle Blankenship. He now had a bandage across that torn and bleeding spot. Satisfied with the IV, the doctor took Steve's pulse again and frowned. "It's _still_ fast," he said. "He's got enough sedative in him right now to put an elephant out, but he's sure trying to fight it."

Oscar was pacing back and forth on a parallel track to the bed, leaving room for Rudy and Carla to work but still staying close. "How is he?" he demanded.

Rudy sighed and touched Steve on the forehead. "This fever has definitely gone even higher than it was the last time I did vitals two hours ago." He removed the thermometer and studied it. "104.3."

"Would it help to transfer him to the full hospital?" Oscar asked.

Rudy debated, then shook his head. "I really don't see what else we could do there for him that we aren't here, and with that fact established, the fewer people involved, the better for security. We're already trying all symptomatic treatment. It just isn't working, at least not yet."

"There's ice," Carla suggested tentatively.

Rudy slowly nodded. "I've been trying to avoid that because of the bionic complications with extreme cold, didn't want to make him feel even worse, but this is getting to the point we're going to have to. All right, Carla, get several ice packs. We have got to get this fever down."

She left the room, and Oscar moved up a little closer, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder. In spite of the amount of drugs he had in him at the moment, Steve still reacted slightly, pulling away from the touch. "Easy, Steve. It's me." Steve settled, and Oscar turned to Rudy and dropped his voice to a near whisper. "Thank God Steve is as weak as he is at the moment. Blankenship said he was just shaken up, but Steve at anything close to full strength would have killed him. He'd have a lot of trouble coming to terms with that once he gets better."

Oscar cringed, thinking how near to disaster things had come. If Steve had actually hurt or killed the scientist, it would have sparked international awkwardness to put it mildly, but even more alarming to Oscar was thinking of the eventual effect on his friend once Steve regained his senses. Blankenship had reported that he had been looking for Oscar to ask him something and thought he had seen him heading that direction a few minutes earlier, so he was just checking rooms quickly for Oscar when Steve abruptly sprang out of nowhere and tackled him. All of them, running to the sounds of the fight, had seen Steve on top of the other man trying apparently to knock him straight through the floor. Steve had been locked in as Oscar had never before seen him, blind and deaf to all else, not even noticing their shouts or efforts to pull him away. The only thing that had finally broken up that fight was Rudy's hastily prepared shot that knocked Steve out.

"He was actually trying to hurt him." Rudy sighed again. "You know, I have never seen Steve truly trying to hurt someone before. Immobilize people, yes, but he always held himself in check and tried to not take it too far unless he had no choice. With Blankenship, he really wanted to that time. He was throwing every effort he could at him. You're right; we were lucky. I hate keeping him drugged heavily, but we're just going to have to increase the doses on the sedatives. He'll thank us when he comes out of this."

"Yes. He's going to be all right, Rudy. He has to be. With everything he's survived, it can't be just a simple virus that turns out to be too much for him."

Rudy ran a hand over his hair, feeling frustrated. "I just hope I'm not missing something. I have run every test I can think of already today, gone over all his systems physical and bionic, and I can't find any other factor, any injury or infection. I've even done toxicology tests to make sure he wasn't poisoned somehow. He was exhausted and run down, but the electrolyte imbalances are improving. By everything I've seen, this is just a bug, but it's sure putting up a fight. Then there was what happened just now. I had checked on him not five minutes earlier, and he was asleep and sedated. Even if he woke up for some reason and saw Blankenship go by through the window, I don't know how he managed to find the strength to jump off that bed, charge out of this room, and tackle him as he was passing. Then this whole thing about Blankenship. Clearly his eye is malfunctioning because of the fever, but it's odd that he's so fixated on one person."

"He knows us, and he trusts us," Oscar suggested. "He knows the lab staff, too. Maybe that's why he's subconsciously throwing everything that's wrong at the moment onto the stranger."

"Could be." Carla reentered at that moment with several ice packs, and she and Rudy started placing them around Steve's neck and torso, trying to avoid contact with the right arm. Steve again shifted a little, pulling back. "You're going to be all right, Steve. We're trying to help you," Rudy reassured him. He finished with the ice, then stepped back, jerking his head at Carla. She retreated to the far wall of the room for a soft conference, and Oscar came over to join them.

"New rules here," Rudy said. "We're going to increase the sedatives until the fever falls and he's oriented again, even overuse them. There's no choice, not any longer. We have got to keep him resting and still so he can fight this instead of what he thinks he's seeing at the moment. Those blinds at the window are also going to be kept fully closed from this point so he can't ever get a glimpse of anything out there. I know it makes him harder to monitor from outside, but we're going to have people right in this room from now on, even if he's asleep. He'll never be alone. Also, we have to be very careful. He hasn't tried to hurt any of us, but he's clearly not in full control of his actions because of the illness. So I want two people in here at all times with him, never one person alone. And they have to be people he knows well, just in case Oscar is right that the reason he's picked Blankenship to fixate on is he's a stranger. We don't want him to get set off by one of us."

Carla nodded. "He'd never forgive himself later if he hurt one of us."

"No, he wouldn't." Rudy chewed his lower lip, again feeling like he was missing some piece of data. At the moment, the data he was most concerned with was the thermometer he had stuck in his lab coat pocket, and he was having trouble focusing past those numbers. "I'll stay here tonight to watch him. I think tonight is going to be the crisis one way or another with this fever. Carla, you can divide the shift with another nurse."

"I'll stay myself all night," she said at once.

Oscar turned toward the door. "I'll have them bring in extra chairs. That way we can each have one."

(SMDM)

It was a long night. Steve's fever continued rising for the first few hours, and Rudy and Carla kept him packed in ice. Steve was very heavily drugged now, but his pulse was still faster than Rudy would have liked, and his expression hardly looked restful. Oscar wondered what he was fighting there inside his mind, what he had personalized this illness as. Was it Blankenship? Or was he off on some convoluted mission that kept getting crazier as it perpetually went wrong?

Finally, around midnight, his fever peaked and then suddenly dropped. He seemed to be sleeping more soundly, too. After another hour without the temperature rising again, Rudy took away the ice. "I think he's turned the corner," he told Oscar. "Hope so, anyway."

"He'll beat this," Oscar said again as he had earlier. He was still trying to convince himself as much as reassure the others. "How long do you think it will be until he wakes up? I know he needs rest, but I'll feel better when I can talk to him, even briefly."

Rudy nodded. "I know. I will, too. Especially after earlier." All three of them were still carrying that final image of Steve trying with all the power he could muster at the moment to hurt the other man. Even as he had lost consciousness after Rudy managed to give him the shot, his last move had been another convulsive grab at Blankenship. "He definitely needs to sleep. Let's not try to wake him, but I'll cut the doses he's getting on the sedative down again somewhat. He'll still be pretty drugged, but as the heaviest burden of it wears off, if he wakes up on his own, hopefully we can talk to him for a minute."

So they sat there watching him sleep, and gradually, in spite of themselves, they dozed off, too. The last day had worn out everyone. Oscar snapped to alertness suddenly, hearing Steve shift, and he looked at his watch. It was nearly 8:00 a.m. Steve's head moved a little on the pillow, and Rudy jolted awake himself and jumped out of his chair. He crossed over to the bed with Oscar a short step behind him, and Carla joined them a moment later. Rudy put his hand on Steve's forehead. "Still got just a low fever, but it's a big improvement," he told them. Steve's eyelids flickered, and Rudy put a hand on his shoulder. "Steve. Can you hear me?"

Steve slowly opened his eyes. It took him several seconds to focus on anything, but eventually, he looked up at Rudy, then over at the other two of them. He looked dazed, but there was clear recognition. "Take it easy," Rudy told him. "How are you feeling?"

"Better, I think." His eyes halfway fell shut again, and he fought to reopen them.

"You're still pretty sedated. Just rest; don't struggle against it. You're getting better now," Rudy said. "You're going to be all right, Steve."

Steve turned toward Oscar. "Where's Blankenship?" he asked.

Oscar and Rudy shared a look across the bed. They had hoped Steve wouldn't remember that whole last episode with Blankenship. On the other hand, Oscar thought, maybe his friend was concerned that he had hurt him.

"Blankenship was fine, Steve," he assured him. "He was just shaken up. You were too weak to have any of your bionic strength, fortunately."

Steve shook his head. "I did. Right then. I was getting some bionics, trying to. Know I was. Had to stop him." He fought against the lassitude of the drugs again.

Rudy sighed, and Oscar shook his head. Steve had seemed oriented at first, but now he was diving straight back into this fixation on Blankenship. "Steve, you were just sick. It was all the illness. We know that's what made you attack him."

"No." Steve's jaw was set.

Rudy gave up. They would simply have to buy more time, although this much insistence with only a low-grade fever now worried him. "Carla," he said softly, "get me -"

"No!" Steve opened his eyes fully again, struggling to form the words. "He 'tacked me."

"What?" Oscar asked, wondering if he'd heard that right. Carla, who had taken one step toward the door, filling in Rudy's interrupted request for more sedatives, froze.

"He attacked me. Came in here. I was 'sleep. He woke me up giving me a shot."

"What?" It was Rudy's turn to be incredulous.

Steve nodded. "Gave me a shot. In my right arm."

Rudy frowned. "You're saying that Blankenship came in here when you were asleep, and you woke up with him giving you a shot, and that's why you tackled him as he was leaving? That fight started here, not out there?" That scenario couldn't be a bionic eye malfunction due to illness, which left either a pure hallucination - or, as wild as it sounded, the truth.

"Yeah." Steve's eyes fell closed again. "Not my eye. Shot can't be me. That was him. So I tried - tried to get it back. Got to stop him. Proof. So you'd believe me. Tried to get the needle. But you drugged me." That speech seemed to take the last of his strength at the moment, and his voice trailed off.

"Steve, where? Can you tell us where exactly he gave you a shot?" Steve's left hand moved over to his right arm, and Rudy followed it. He pushed the sleeve up, checking the skin, then tapped the spot. A very small puncture was visible, hard to see unless you were looking for it. "Son of a gun."

Oscar leaned over for a better look. Carla was staring, too. "Why would Dr. Blankenship give him a shot?" she asked.

"Do you realize the strength that it took to punch a needle through that skin?" Rudy asked.

Steve tried to open his eyes again. "He's strong. Really strong. Fight was bionic. Some."

Rudy raised his head, and Oscar saw the wheels spring into motion mentally. It was times like this when he seized an idea that Rudy looked every inch the genius doctor that he was. "He was aiming for the muscle, but whatever he injected might still be in there since there's no muscle to inject into. Liquid wouldn't disperse nearly as quickly in the bionics as in flesh, and Steve's been just lying here still for several hours. It might be drained down into a nice collection for us. Hang on a minute, Steve. I'll be back. I'm going to try something here."

Rudy left, and Oscar moved up closer to the bedside. "I'm sorry, pal," he said. "None of us have been listening to you at all, have we?"

Steve shook his head slightly. "I'm not crazy," he mumbled.

"We didn't think you were crazy, but we weren't even considering the possibility that you might really be seeing something different. We should have at least wondered, especially when you kept seeing it."

"But what is going on with Blankenship?" Carla asked.

Oscar shrugged. "No idea, but _something_ definitely is. There isn't any valid reason for him to give a shot to Steve."

Rudy reentered the room holding two syringes, one full and one empty, and a small instrument kit. "Okay, Steve, I'm going to give you a shot myself."

Steve retreated into the pillow. "Don't knock me out again. You believe me?" Steve asked.

"Yes, I believe you. I'm sorry, Steve. This isn't going to knock you out." He injected the full syringe into Steve's left arm, then gave his shoulder a squeeze. "You just rest for a few minutes. You'll feel better soon. Meanwhile, I'm going to be working on your right arm some, so hold still." He rounded the bed. First, he carefully put on gloves, then opened his instrument kit. Soon he had an access flap opened very near the puncture wound, and he peered through the inner circuitry, retracting a few things out of the way as he investigated. "There. There is a small collection of fluid. Now, let's see if I can retrieve it." He inserted the needle on the empty syringe and then pulled the plunger back. The milky fluid was sucked up into the syringe. Satisfied, he stepped back and capped the needle, then turned to Carla.

"I want a full tox screen on that substance, and be very careful yourself handling it." She nodded and left the room, and Rudy turned back to Steve. He closed up the arm carefully, then spoke. "Steve? Are you feeling better?"

Steve's eyes opened again. He looked sharper, much less foggy than a few minutes ago as Rudy's shot burned through the remnants of the sedatives. "Yes," he said, sounding almost like himself.

Oscar smiled. "Okay, pal. Let's have it from the beginning, everything you've noticed with Blankenship. And this time, we're listening to you."


	7. Chapter 7

"It's like he's outlined," Steve said. "Sort of a neon yellow all around him. I can only see it with the bionic eye, and magnification didn't give me anything more. And the neon yellow pulses sometimes." He paused to look at his audience. Both Oscar and Rudy were following him this time, none of that humoring him expression that had driven him nuts.

"It pulses." Rudy's scientific side was kicking in. "But only sometimes?"

Steve nodded. "The second time I saw him, in the lab, it might have been tied to when he spoke. It came just a little bit before the words. I'm not totally sure on that; I was trying to just stay standing up at that point. I really was sick."

"You still aren't totally well, either," Rudy reminded him. "But this is something you've never seen before?"

"Never." Steve was definite. "But it was only him, nothing else, nobody else. That's what made me think from the beginning that it was real and not just a malfunction. My eye wouldn't malfunction just on one person."

"Fair point," Oscar conceded.

"Which I tried to make to both of you before," Steve couldn't resist adding.

Oscar winced. "Sorry, pal."

Rudy was trying to work this out. "The pulsation. Did it happen also when he was walking?"

Steve shook his head. "I haven't seen him walking much. Just walking away from Oscar's office that first night, and I was still trying to figure out myself if it _was_ an eye malfunction. The second time, in the lab, he was just standing still. And the third time -" He shuddered.

"Yes, what happened that third time?" Oscar said. "You said he woke you up giving you the shot."

"Yes. That time was a lot harder to focus on fine details. For one, you had me drugged, and second, I really was feeling awful right then, even worse than before. Everything was a little shimmery. I could tell there _was_ a general illness effect on the eye that time."

"Your fever was starting spiking just then," Rudy said. "It went close to 105 last night before it finally broke."

Steve looked a little surprised. "It got that high?"

"Yes. We had to use ice. I doubt you remember the ice, though."

"No," Steve said. "I don't remember anything past the fight to waking up a few minutes ago. Glad I missed being frozen out. Anyway, Blankenship was right beside the bed giving me the shot, but I think he was having a hard time getting through the skin. He was putting his body into it, and his elbow was pushing me right in my bruised ribs. That's what woke me up. I was still trying to piece this all together and figure out what he was doing when he finished and stepped back, and I saw the needle. Even slightly out of focus, a needle is still a needle. I knew there wasn't any valid explanation for that, so as he turned to leave, I tackled him. He put up a hell of a fight. I know I was getting some response on the bionics just then, not full but some, but he actually was on top at one point."

"We missed that," Oscar said. "By the time we all came running, you were back on top. And you didn't hear any of us."

"I heard you," Steve corrected. "It was kind of down a tunnel at a distance, but I recognized you and Rudy. But all I could think of right then was getting the needle. I knew already that you wouldn't listen to me. Talking to you wouldn't do any good, and he had the needle right there. That was proof. I had to get it before he had a chance to get rid of it."

At that moment, the door to the room opened, and Carla reentered. She looked as mad as Steve had ever seen her. She walked silently over to Rudy and handed him a piece of paper, letting it speak for itself. Rudy read the lab report, and his own jaw tightened.

"Poison?" Oscar asked.

"Yes. You would have died, Steve. Would have worsened over about four hours, just slowly enough that we would think it was the illness, and then died. If you hadn't had your right arm closer to the door, and if he'd picked the left one to inject into the muscle instead, you wouldn't be here right now."

The four of them looked at each other. "So what is going on?" Steve asked. "Obviously, he's trying something - spying would be my guess. And I was a threat to him in case you guys started listening to me. Oscar, are you sure of this man's credentials?"

"Positive." Oscar was stunned. "His reputation extends a few decades, and it's spotless. His country is a long-trusted ally. This doesn't make sense."

"Unless -" Rudy was thinking at full speed. "Unless that isn't really Blankenship."

"An imposter?" Oscar asked.

"A robot," Rudy corrected. "Dolenz, the robot maker from last time, is in prison, but we know that somebody else somewhere else could develop the same technology. Maybe he's using a slightly different power source or wiring, and that's what Steve's picking up on."

Steve nodded. "It did feel kind of like the fights with those robots. He's sure stronger than the average human."

Oscar sighed. "Wonderful. We've got a robot from some completely unknown source walking around the lab, and he's been here a whole day so far. I didn't show him any truly classified areas on that tour, but it _would_ let him know exactly where those highest security areas were by omission. God only knows what he's already sent back."

Steve straightened up a little in the bed. "Sent back. There have to be transmissions. Maybe that's the pulse I'm reading, when he gets a transmission for exact words. Maybe some when he sends data back, too; I haven't had a lot of chance to study him. Rudy, if we could get a tracer on him, could you locate the source he's sending information to?"

"I could probably rig something up, but how are we supposed to get it on him?" Rudy asked. "We can't just walk up and hand it to him and ask him to take it everywhere with him."

"The safe room," Steve said. "It's impenetrable by transmissions. Lure him in there on some pretext, and if he is a robot, he would shut down as soon as the door was closed. We could have a few minutes to study him quickly and tag him, and if we didn't take long and Oscar pretended to just be on the phone or something the whole time and not notice anything, his controller might pass it off as an electronic temporary malfunction that cleared up without drawing attention to him."

Rudy smiled. "That could work. Best chance I see, Oscar."

"Sounds good," Oscar said. "We've got to catch the man behind him, not just stop him, and we have to recover whatever images he's already sent back."

"Great. Let's go." Steve moved the sheet back.

"Now wait a minute." Rudy's hand closed on his arm. "You have really been quite sick, and you still aren't fully well. You don't need to be running around helping us capture robots."

"You can't shut me out of this," Steve protested. "Not after I had to listen to you and everybody else tell me over and over that I was just seeing things. You all owe me that much."

Oscar grinned. His friend was sounding more and more like himself all the time. "He's got a point, Rudy." Carla was smiling, too.

"Rudy," Steve continued. "You said you wanted to keep me under observation in the lab. Well, I don't intend to leave the lab, and you can observe me all you want. I'm not going to go chase down the other end of the transmission; I just want to be on in the safe room to see what happens there."

Rudy sighed. "All right, but we can't let him see you until the door is closed." He looked around the group. "All of you, remember that Steve is supposed to be dead. If the robot asks for any information, just say Steve got worse last night and look sad and like you've been up all night. He'll fill in the blanks himself. It's going to take me a little while to rig up a tracer and get ready for a few minutes of fast exploration on him once that door is closed. Meanwhile, keep up the front. And as for you, Steve, I want you to eat breakfast while I'm working on things. You hardly had anything yesterday. Everybody understand?" They all nodded.

Oscar smiled. "Let's work on catching this man."


	8. Chapter 8

Oscar left that classified section of the lab shortly thereafter and almost immediately once into the general sections ran into Blankenship - or rather, the robot posing as Blankenship. He was glad for Rudy's warning to give him a chance to prepare his words and hide his reaction.

"How is Colonel Austin this morning?" the robot asked solicitously.

Oscar forced himself to look sad. He didn't have to fake barely getting any sleep last night; that was true enough. "I'm afraid he took a turn for the worse last night," he replied. "Excuse me, but I have to go check some things in my office. I was up most of the night."

The robot nodded with a sympathetic expression that made Oscar want to hit him. "Of course. I was afraid when he tackled me last night that Austin might be heading for a crisis. He was so clearly delirious, and the fever was overcoming him."

"I really must go check on a few things. I'll see you later, Dr. Blankenship." Oscar turned away and headed for his office.

(SMDM)

It was getting close to noon when Rudy came into his office, entering without knocking. He was holding a small electronic chip as a child might hold a Christmas toy. "We've got him," he said with satisfaction. "Assuming we're right, that is, and that he's a robot. If I can insert this, it should track all transmissions nicely."

"How's Steve?" Oscar asked.

"Doing better all the time. He's definitely on the mend. Which is _not_ to say that you can send him back out on another case immediately."

"Oh, I know. He's going to get a nice vacation."

"Yes. Unfortunately, we're going to have to settle this robot issue first, because frankly, if I released him before we had all the answers, I don't trust him not to take off on his own to get them." Rudy smiled fondly, then got down to business. "Okay, I'm going to need 20 minutes." Oscar looked at his watch. "I'll be with Steve in the safe room, with both of us out of sight as you first come in the door. If you can arrange for somebody to call that phone exactly in 20 minutes, you can be coming through the door and have the phone ring a split second before the robot shuts down. When the door is reopened, you can just sound like you've been on the phone the whole time. We're going to have to move quickly; can't possibly buy more than a couple of minutes of down time here without making his maker suspicious."

"Sounds like a plan." Oscar stood, then looked at his watch one final time. "Go."

(SMDM)

It worked perfectly. Oscar fetched the robot, saying he wanted to show him a new, interesting experiment that he hadn't had time to on the former tour. The robot went with him willingly. The safe room was standing open invitingly, and the phone rang just as Oscar and the robot stepped through and Oscar shut the door behind him.

In the next second, the robot froze, an electronic rock in the middle of the room. Steve and Rudy peeled themselves off their hiding places against the front wall on either side of the door.

"Now," said Steve with satisfaction, "let's dig into this imposter."


	9. Chapter 9

Rudy worked quickly. "Two minutes," he reinforced. "I think that's the longest we can pass this off as an electronic blip without making whoever is at the controls suspicious." He injected his microtransmitter into the neck, then ran a scanner over it. "It's working perfectly."

Steve was studying the frozen robot, and Oscar asked him, "Is it still glowing?"

"Yes. Not pulsing now, though. Maybe that is the moment of transmission." He closed his left eye. "There's nothing at all odd with the right. It's all from the bionics."

Rudy, having implanted his transmitter, checked his watch, then ran another electronic instrument over the robot, gathering all the data he could quickly to study later. "It does seem to have an unusual power source. That is probably what you're picking up on, Steve."

"30 seconds left," Oscar warned. He still held the phone in his hand. Rudy made a few last scans, then touched Steve on the arm.

"Come on," he warned. "Let's get out of here before he has a chance to spot us." They moved back to the door, and Oscar, lifting the phone to his ear, nodded. Rudy opened the door to the safe room, and he and Steve ducked out quickly as the robot came to life.

"Thank you. I'll do that," Oscar said into the phone. He hung up and turned, forcing himself to smile. "I apologize, Doctor. Hopefully you weren't bored while I was focused on that call for a minute."

The robot blinked, then replied pleasantly. "No, not at all, Mr. Goldman."

"Good. Now, here's what I wanted to show you." Oscar picked up an interesting but not-at-all classified experimental gadget they had been working on and started to demonstrate it.

(SMD)

Dr. Neborra gave a sigh of relief as he settled back against the back of his chair again. The picture had gone totally blank for almost two minutes, but fortunately, Goldman didn't seem to have noticed. He resumed watching his screen and making his plans for the robot's after-hours activities tonight. With Austin eliminated, he could really get down to his data stealing in earnest this evening. Goldman and that Dr. Wells, who had spent the last night watching Steve Austin worsen and die, no doubt were both worn out and would go home on time this evening for some rest.

Neborra was still plotting his evening's work two hours later when the police burst through the door. He stared at his arresters, stunned, temporarily unable to speak.

That was all right. Dr. Blankenship - the _real_ Dr. Blankenship - once released had enough to say for both of them.

(SMD)

"And the data from the earlier transmissions was recovered," Oscar reported with satisfaction. "Neborra actually hadn't gotten too much yet. Apparently, most of his time to date had been taken up trying to eliminate you."

Steve smiled at him. "Trying being the operative word." Steve was standing in Oscar's office holding a duffle bag. "And now, I actually get a vacation. Half of me keeps expecting Oscar to change his mind."

"Not on your life," Rudy reported. "Two full weeks, no less. Get out of here. And Steve - "

Steve turned back, raising an eyebrow.

"Try to stay out of trouble," Rudy told him.

Steve gave his two friends his crooked grin. "You know me."

"That's the trouble," Oscar said as the door closed behind his friend. "But at least we know one thing."

"What's that?" Rudy asked.

"While he's out there having fun, he won't be dealing with any robots."

Rudy looked serious. "Oh, I don't know that we can guarantee that. Dolenz is in jail, Neborra is now in custody, but you know, there's nothing to prevent somebody else from developing their own line. It's happened twice now."

Oscar nodded. "Yes, it has, and furthermore, you are not on vacation. That's why I want a robot detector developed ASAP. Priority assignment. Everything else can wait."

"I've already started designing one," Rudy replied. He headed out briskly to the lab, and Oscar walked over to the window, looking out into Washington. The red phone rang, and he jumped and picked it up. "Steve? What's wrong?" His friend and main field operative had just left; surely nothing could have happened that quickly.

"Nothing's wrong, Oscar. I just wanted to ask when you do get the final reports on dissecting that thing from Rudy, I'd appreciate getting a copy. That would make some nice vacation reading."

Oscar relaxed. "No, it wouldn't. You can see them when you come back. Enjoy yourself, pal." He shook his head, imagining Rudy's reaction to Steve spending any vacation time going over robot blueprints and doing his own postmortem on this case. Then, shoving thoughts of robots away at least temporarily himself, Oscar left the office, turning off the lights. For once, he was leaving early himself and just going home. OSI was secured from another threat, and for now, for tonight, that was enough.


End file.
